Saturday, August 7, 2010

One Strike You're Out

In accordance with newly enacted legislation, the gun owner will permanently forfeit his right to own guns, spend 10 days in jail and report to a probation officer for 10 years, submitting to regular and random home inspections, to ensure compliance. The new law signed by the governor earlier this week is called the "one strike you're out gun law." Supporters are optimistic that this year alone thousands of lives and millions of dollars will be saved.

Jadegold: “Second, the costs of incarceration and probation are a fraction of the costs incurred as a result of gun violence/accidents.”

Really? So you are so anti-gun delusional as to believe two outpatient treatments at the local hospital would cost more than 10 years of bureaucracy? And it is not like you are paying their medical bills as you like to claim. This guy is getting the bill.

I would not hold cops to a higher standard but the same standard as everyone else.

Ever notice how almost every single piece of gun control legislation has a clause so that the law does not apply to law enforcement? Why is that? If a gun law is "common sense" and is there for the good of society, then why does it not apply to police as well? Are they not carrying guns and a part of society? Even when people talk about banning the carrying of guns in a coffee shop or something nearly everyone, including the Brady stooges always add "except for police".

Most of our law enforcement do a brave, tremendous job though there are some bad apples that tend to make the news. Regardless, police are not a higher class of citizen and should not be above or have their own set of laws from the lower class citizens.

Or unless you believe that a gun is the legitimate tool of the job of law enforcement and not of the normal citizen. A bricklayer or accountant does not need a gun to do his job. That's the difference.

Cops aren't a lower or higher class of citizen because they don't use trowels in their work like bricklayers do.

"Or unless you believe that a gun is the legitimate tool of the job of law enforcement and not of the normal citizen."

Like I said, statism.

"A bricklayer or accountant does not need a gun to do his job. That's the difference."

True enough.

But where do the police get their powers? Their authority over the populace is derived from the will of the people, and the only reason they have the authority to carry guns as agents of the government is because we the people, through legislation and elected legislators, have allowed it. In other words, they couldn't carry guns if we didn't allow them to do so.

Felony gun crimes come with the revocation of the right to own firearms with random inspections for compliance. However, this doesn't deter violent offenders from obtaining firearms to carry out crimes. Black market gun deals are so prevalent that even the U.S. government conducts them on a massive scale. All this "One Strike" law would do is take guns from law abiding citizens who have had the misfortune of being involved in a gun mishap. It's called "judgement" and "reason". If there is no reason to strip a citizen of his rights then it is the best judgement to not do so.

I think permanent loss of firearm privileges for an accident is a bit harsh.

How about......injury to oneself, loss of firearm privileges for 10 years, and a fine? Injury to someone else, payment of their medical care expenses, a fine, and loss of firearm privileges permanently, with incarceration only if the oops!shooter is found in violation of the restriction on gun ownership/possession, something along the lines of a month for the first infraction, and then six months to a year for any subsequent violation of having a gun.

We are already incarcerating too many people.

Anon, if someone - in this case 2 people - have to go to the hospital, THAT is 'reason'. As to what is deterrence, I would disagree with you that efforts at detterence are ineffective. Some are more effective than others, but you appear to be arguing that nothng works, so we shouldn't do anything. That is inaccurate, per this, for example, which suggests that there are efforts which are effective in reducing illegal guns AND gun violence.